The defence of two Mossos who accompanied Carles Puigdemont in Barcelona in August 2024 requests dismissal. They rely on the reasoning of the investigating judge from the Supreme Court.
The lawyer Isabel Elbal has submitted allegations to the Investigating Court number 24 of Barcelona in defence of the officers Xavier Manso and David Goicoechea. Their main argument is that detaining Carles Puigdemont would have been inappropriate, supported by the decision of Judge Pablo Llarena, the instructor of the case against the exiled president.
According to the document, on 6 October, the instructor nullified the arrest orders following the green light from the Supreme Court to apply amnesty to the crime of embezzlement. The judge warned that maintaining them could lead to a deprivation of liberty that, upon reviewing the rulings, would prove inappropriate, and that such harm would not be erased by a subsequent lifting of the orders.
“Criminal law cannot punish agents for failing to carry out an arrest that the same legal system now considers to be unfounded”
Elbal argues that the same inappropriate deprivation of liberty is what is now being reproached to the defendants for not having carried it out in August 2024, during Puigdemont's brief visit to Barcelona. For the defence, the actions attributed to the officers do not constitute a crime, and therefore they request dismissal.
The lawyer adds that dismissal is necessary for the coherence of the system. She recalls that the law mandates the application of amnesty to its beneficiaries during the investigation phase or the intermediate phase, and that this has been done by the National Court. Therefore, she believes that leaving the case in provisional dismissal or in a formula that leaves the typicity of the conduct uncertain would not be appropriate.
“Any different approach would incite a violation of the principle of criminal legality, the fundamental rights of the defendants, and an undue public expenditure resulting from a judicial pursuit lacking any legal foundation”
Specifically, Elbal requests that the preliminary proceedings against Manso and Goicoechea be nullified and that free dismissal and the archiving of the proceedings be agreed upon. She also urges that the dismissal not be based on a subsequent loss of the objective nor be provisional in nature.
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